I take about 1/3 of my stems out every year. The older stems, 3+ years, usually have less winter color. The regular trimming keeps new branches coming up, gives good winter color. Also keeps them contained, old growth gets very scraggly, turns into a thicket quickly. My bushes are varigated leaf, to get a two season appeal They are in heavy ground, which holds water well. I do water some in dry times. Semi-shady days, which also keeps them smaller. With very small or spindly new bushes, I would try topping them. Just cut off the top few inches of a couple stems, see if it encourages side growth, without removing the whole stem. It will help get the root growth going better, so reward might be next year with more sprouts.

Oh dear, so sorry it's taken me SEVEN YEARS to reply to your comments! I'm back with another update. My beloved dogwood is still with me - as Mike noted, chopping it down did not get rid of it. Though, it did take a couple of years before new shoots started emerging. By that point, I was so impressed with its resilience that I let it do its thing. I've let it grow on and off every other year or so since then. Last summer, the shrub grew to a glorious large size and the aphid swarm was correspondingly large (black, winged aphids). It was the worst I've ever seen it - they were attacking even the mature leaves. I had to prune the shrub down to the ground as it was becoming a sticky, aphid-covered mess. To answer some of your questions: - I do not fertilize nor water this shrub at all, yet it grows lush and healthy all on its own - I live in the northern part of Zone 8 (British Columbia, Canada) - Dogwoods are native to this part of the world so it's well suited and thrives here - I've tried a ladybug release in the past, but they didn't stay on the shrub - they were pretty much all gone by the end of the day! - I haven't tried the other beneficial insects yet - willing to consider them but only have a small budget - money's very tight right now - Sorry, I didn't snap any photos of the infestations... but I will try to remember to next time it happens I'm quite sure I'm giving this dogwood the care it should get... so I'm absolutely confounded by the aphid infestations!! Any other suggestions?

Sometimes I wonder about myself and other times there is no doubt. I also am growing Cornus 'Bailey's Red Twig' which grows very tall and is a glowing purple red in Winter. The large one died mysteriosly. Perhaps that is why I did not bring it up, but I took one branch and made it into foot long cuttings before there was even a sign of trouble and put them in a pot of soil. Two weeks ago I took them and planted them about, each with a huge mass of roots. They seem fine. The terrible disease affecting dogwoods seems to be only attacking C. florida and I have lost the most mature of the many growing around in the woods.

I did not mean to imply that they were acid lovers - only that they are not fussy about soil pH and will grow in both acidic, neutral and slightly alkaline situations. btw, most acid lovers are not all that fussy about the degree of acidity either, as long as the soil is at least moderately acidic. This is readily demonstrated in the PNW where soils are indeed acidic but not overly so - typically in the 5.5 to 6.5 range and native ericaceous plants abound - rhododendrons, vacciniums, arbutus, arctostaphylos, salal and mahonia. And a wide range of non-natives Ericaceaes/recognized acid lovers as well - blueberries, camellias, pieris, heaths and heathers, eucryphia, leucothoe, fothergilla, hydrangeas, Japanese maples......the list is nearly endless :-) Few folks here ever bother to acidify their garden conditions - what we have naturally tends to be more than adequate (with some minor exceptions). FWIW, the vast majority of plants are adapted to a relatively wide range of soil pH (considering it is a logarithmic scale and each point is a ten-fold increase or decrease) and most would prefer to grow in slightly to moderately acidic soils as that tends to offer the greatest nutrient availability.